Ikegami signs OEM deal with InPhase for 300GB drives

Ikegami’s going holographic thanks to a new OEM (original equipment manufacturer) agreement it just inked with with InPhase Technologies, maker of holographic drives that can store 300GB of data.

Under the terms of the deal Ikegami will sell high-capacity holographic data-archiving systems capable of storing 300 GB of data on each drive under the Ikegami name. The initial product resulting from the agreement will be an Ikegami-branded 300GB external holographic drive associated with a PC. The drive provides a cost-effective, tapeless solution for archiving large video files finished on nonlinear editing systems and acquired with Editcam and Editcam HD tapeless camcorders. The 300GB external holographic drive for use with PC systems employs a 130mm disk-based media cartridge with a shelf life of 50 years. Second- and third-generation external holographic drives are in development with capacities of 800GB and 1.6TB, respectively; both will be backward-compatible.

Ikegami is pleased to enter into this historic agreement with InPhase Technologies, a pioneer in the highly beneficial field of holographic data recording and storage, states Naoki Kashimura, Marketing Manager, Ikegami Tsushinki. Ikegami was the first company to develop and market tapeless video acquisition technology with its Editcam ENG/EFP camcorder, and we anticipate widespread interest among broadcasters, cable networks, and leading program producers in this new and revolutionary 300GB digital video archiving solution.”

The Ikegami-branded InPhase external holographic drive will enable users of Ikegami s Editcam and Editcam HD camcorders to transfer edited or camera-original video content via FireWire or FTP interfaces to highly stable 300GB cartridges with all the advantages of tapeless nonlinear archiving and retrieval. Editcam and Editcam HD acquisition will continue to utilize Ikegami s hard-disk-based and solid-state FieldPak2 media, which can be overwritten for repeated use.
The cartridge-encased 130mm holographic storage disc media is comprised of two substrates with 1.5mm of recording material between them. Data is recorded between the substrates, with no surface recording. This use of the full depth of the recording material is a major factor in the robustness of the holographic media itself. Data is recorded at 1.4 million bits per second, using a blue laser from 405 to 407 nm in wavelength.

Holographic recording, which stores information in three dimensions, has a roadmap for density that outperforms any other technology, explains Liz Murphy, InPhase Technologies VP of Marketing. We ve already demonstrated 515GB per square inch data density in our labs in May, which is beyond the capacities of hard drives.